Under the Dome: A Novel (48 page)

They were waiting for the last customers to leave when Linda’s cell phone rang. She looked at the caller ID and felt a little stab of fear in her stomach. It was Marta Edmunds, who kept Janelle and Judy when Linda and Rusty were both working—as they had been, almost nonstop, since the Dome came down. She hit callback.

“Marta?” she said, praying it was nothing, Marta asking if it was okay for her to take the girls down to the common, something like that. “Everything all right?”

“Well … yes. That is, I guess so.” Linda hating the worry she heard in Marta’s voice. “But … you know that seizure thing?”

“Oh God—did she have one?”

“I think so,” Marta said, then hurried on: “They’re perfectly okay now, in the other room, coloring.”

“What happened? Tell me!”

“They were on the swings. I was doing my flowers, getting them ready for winter—”

“Marta,
please
!” Linda said, and Jackie laid a hand on her arm.

“I’m sorry. Audi started to bark, so I turned around. I said, ‘Honey, are you all right?’ She didn’t answer, just got out of the swing and sat down underneath—you know, where there’s a little dip from all the feet? She didn’t
fall
out or anything, just sat down.
She was staring straight ahead and doing that lip-smacking thing you told me to watch for. I ran over … kind of shook her … and she said … let me think …”

Here it comes,
Linda thought.
Stop Halloween, you have to stop Halloween.

But no. It was something else entirely.

“She said ‘The pink stars are falling. The pink stars are falling in lines.’ Then she said, ‘It’s so dark and everything smells bad.’ Then she woke up and now everything’s fine.”

“Thank God for that,” Linda said, and spared a thought for her five-year-old. “Is Judy okay? Did it upset her?”

There was a long pause on the line and then Marta said, “Oh.”

“
Oh?
What does that mean,
oh
?”

“It
was
Judy, Linda. Not Janelle. This time it was Judy.”

15

I want to play that other game you said,
Aidan had told Carolyn Sturges when they had stopped on the common to talk to Rusty. The other game she had in mind was Red Light, although Carolyn had only the slightest recollection of the rules—not surprising, since she hadn’t played it since she was six or seven.

But once she was standing against a tree in the commodious backyard of the “passionage,” the rules came back to her. And, unexpectedly, to Thurston, who seemed not only willing to play, but eager.

“Remember,” he instructed the children (who somehow seemed to have missed the pleasures of Red Light themselves), “she can count to ten as fast as she wants to, and if she catches you moving when she turns around, you have to go all the way back.”

“She won’t catch
me,
” Alice said.

“Me, either,” Aidan said stoutly.

“We’ll see about that,” Carolyn said, and turned her face to the tree: “One, two, three, four … five, six, seven … eight-nine-ten RED LIGHT!”

She whirled around. Alice was standing with a smile on her mouth and one leg extended in a big old giant step. Thurston, also smiling, had his hands extended in
Phantom of the Opera
claws. She caught the slightest movement from Aidan, but didn’t even think about sending him back. He looked happy, and she had no intention of spoiling that.

“Good,” she said. “Good little statues. Here comes Round Two.” She turned to the tree and counted again, invaded by the old, childishly delicious fear of knowing people were moving in while her back was turned. “Onetwo threefour fivesix seveneightnineten REDLIGHT!”

She whirled. Alice was now only twenty paces away. Aidan was ten paces or so behind her, trembling on one foot, a scab on his knee very visible. Thurse was behind the boy, one hand on his chest like an orator, smiling. Alice was going to be the one to catch her, but that was all right; in the second game the girl would be “it” and her brother would win. She and Thurse would see to it.

She turned to the tree again. “Onetwothreefo—”

Then Alice screamed.

Carolyn turned and saw Aidan Appleton lying on the ground. At first she thought he was still trying to play the game. One knee—the one with the scab on it—was up, as if he were trying to run on his back. His wide eyes were staring at the sky. His lips were folded into a poochy little
O.
There was a dark spot spreading on his shorts. She rushed to him.

“What’s wrong with him?” Alice asked. Carolyn could see all the stress of the terrible weekend crushing in on her face. “Is he all right?”

“Aidan?” Thurse asked. “You okay, big fella?”

Aidan went on trembling, his lips seeming to suck at an invisible straw. His bent leg came down … then kicked out. His shoulders twitched.

“He’s having some kind of seizure,” Carolyn said. “Probably from overexcitement. I think he’ll come out of it if we just give him a few m—”

“The pink stars are falling,” Aidan said. “They make lines behind them. It’s pretty. It’s scary. Everyone is watching. No treats, only tricks. Hard to breathe. He calls himself the Chef. It’s his fault. He’s the one.”

Carolyn and Thurston looked at each other. Alice was kneeling by her brother, holding his hand.

“Pink stars,” Aidan said. “They fall, they fall, they f—”

“Wake up!”
Alice shouted into his face.
“Stop scaring us!”

Thurston Marshall touched her shoulder gently. “Honey, I don’t think that’s helping.”

Alice paid him no mind.
“Wake up, you … you CRAPHEAD!”

And Aidan did. He looked at his sister’s tear-streaked face, puzzled. Then he looked at Carolyn and smiled—the sweetest goddam smile she had ever seen in her life.

“Did I win?” he asked.

16

The gennie in the Town Hall’s supply shed was badly maintained (someone had shoved an old-timey galvanized tin washbasin under it to catch the dripping oil), and, Rusty guessed, about as energy-efficient as Big Jim Rennie’s Hummer. But he was more interested in the silver tank attached to it.

Barbie looked briefly at the generator, grimaced at the smell, then moved to the tank. “It isn’t as big as I would’ve expected,” he said … although it was a hell of a lot bigger than the canisters they used at Sweetbriar, or the one he had changed out for Brenda Perkins.

“It’s called ‘municipal size,’” Rusty said. “I remember that from the town meeting last year. Sanders and Rennie made a big deal of how the smaller tanks were going to save us yea bucks during ‘these times of costly energy.’ Each one holds eight hundred gallons.”

“Which means a weight of … what? Sixty-four hundred pounds?”

Rusty nodded. “Plus the weight of the tank. It’s a lot to
lift
—
you’d need a forklift or a hydraulic Power Step—but not to move. A Ram pickup is rated for sixty-eight hundred pounds, and it could probably carry more. One of these midsize tanks would fit in the bed, too. Sticking out the end a little bit, is all.” Rusty shrugged. “Hang a red flag from it and you’re good to go.”

“This is the only one here,” Barbie said. “When it’s gone, the Town Hall lights go out.”

“Unless Rennie and Sanders know where there are more,” Rusty agreed. “And I’m betting they do.”

Barbie ran a hand over the blue stenciling on the tank:
CR HOSP.
“This is what you lost.”

“We didn’t lose it; it was stolen. That’s what I’m thinking. Only there should be five more of our tanks in here, because we’re missing a total of six.”

Barbie surveyed the long shed. Despite the stored plows and cartons of reserve parts, the place looked empty. Especially around the generator. “Never mind whatever got kited from the hospital; where’s the rest of the
town’s
tanks?”

“I don’t know.”

“And what could they be using them for?”

“I don’t know,” Rusty said, “but I mean to find out.”

1

Barbie and Rusty stepped outside and breathed deeply of the open air. It had a smoky tang from the recently extinguished fire west of town, but seemed very fresh after the exhaust fumes in the shed. A lackadaisical little breeze cat’s-pawed their cheeks. Barbie was carrying the Geiger counter in a brown shopping bag he’d found in the fallout shelter.

“This shit will not stand,” Rusty said. His face was set and grim.

“What are you going to do about it?” Barbie asked.

“Now? Nothing. I’m going back to the hospital and do rounds. Tonight, though, I intend to knock on Jim Rennie’s door and ask for a goddam explanation. He better have one, and he better have the rest of our propane as well, because we’re going to be dead out at the hospital by the day after tomorrow, even with every nonessential shut down.”

“This might be over by the day after tomorrow.”

“Do you believe it will be?”

Instead of answering the question, Barbie said, “Selectman Rennie could be a dangerous man to press right about now.”

“Just now? That tags you for a town newbie like nothing else could. I’ve been hearing that about Big Jim for the ten thousand or so years he’s been running this town. He either tells people to get lost or pleads patience. ‘For the good of the town,’ he says. That’s number one on his hit parade. Town meeting in March is a joke. An article to authorize a new sewer system? Sorry, the town can’t afford
the taxes. An article to authorize more commercial zoning? Great idea, the town needs the revenue, let’s build a Walmart out on 117. The University of Maine Small Town Environmental Study says there’s too much graywater in Chester Pond? The selectmen recommend tabling discussion because everybody knows all those scientific studies are run by radical humanist bleeding-heart atheists. But the
hospital
is for the good of the town, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes. I would.” Barbie was a little bemused by this outburst.

Rusty stared at the ground with his hands in his back pockets. Then he looked up. “I understand the President tapped you to take over. I think it’s high time you did so.”

“It’s an idea.” Barbie smiled. “Except … Rennie and Sanders have got their police force; where’s mine?”

Before Rusty could reply, his cell phone rang. He flipped it open and looked at the little window. “Linda? What?”

He listened.

“All right, I understand. If you’re sure they’re both okay
now.
And you’re sure it was Judy? Not Janelle?” He listened some more, then said: “I think this is actually good news. I saw two other kids this morning—both with transient seizures that passed off quickly, long before I saw them, and both fine afterward. Had calls on three more. Ginny T. took another one. It could be a side effect of whatever force is powering the Dome.”

He listened.

“Because I didn’t have a
chance
to,” he said. His tone patient, nonconfrontational. Barbie could imagine the question which had prompted that:
Kids have been having seizures all day and
now
you tell me?

“You’re picking the kids up?” Rusty asked. He listened. “Okay. That’s good. If you sense anything wrong, call me ASAP. I’ll come on the run. And make sure Audi stays with them. Yes. Uh-huh. Love you, too.” He hooked the phone on his belt and ran both hands through his hair hard enough to make his eyes look briefly Chinese. “Jesus jumped-up Christ.”

“Who’s Audi?”

“Our golden retriever.”

“Tell me about these seizures.”

Rusty did so, not omitting what Jannie had said about Halloween and what Judy had said about pink stars.

“The Halloween thing sounds like what the Dinsmore boy was raving about,” Barbie said.

“Does, doesn’t it?”

“What about the other kids? Any of them talking about Halloween? Or pink stars?”

“The parents I saw today said their kids babbled while the seizure was ongoing, but they were too freaked to pay any attention.”

“The kids themselves didn’t remember?”

“The kids didn’t even know they’d had seizures.”

“Is that normal?”

“It’s not
ab
normal.”

“Any chance your younger daughter was copying the older one? Maybe … I don’t know … vying for attention?”

Rusty hadn’t considered this—hadn’t had the time, really. Now he did. “Possible, but not likely.” He nodded to the old-fashioned yellow Geiger counter in the bag. “You going prospecting with that thing?”

“Not me,” Barbie said. “This baby’s town property, and the powers that be don’t like me much. I wouldn’t want to be caught with it.” He held the bag out to Rusty.

“Can’t. I’m just too busy right now.”

“I know,” Barbie said, and told Rusty what he wanted him to do. Rusty listened closely, smiling a little.

“Okay,” he said. “Works for me. What are you going to be doing while I’m running your errands?”

“Cooking dinner at Sweetbriar. Tonight’s special is chicken à la Barbara. Want me to send some up to the hospital?”

“Sweet,” Rusty said.

2

On his way back to Cathy Russell, Rusty stopped by the the
Democrat
’s office and handed off the Geiger counter to Julia Shumway.

She listened as he relayed Barbie’s instructions, smiling faintly. “The man knows how to delegate, I’ll say that for him. I’ll see to this with pleasure.”

Rusty thought of cautioning her to be careful about who saw the town’s Geiger counter in her possession, but didn’t need to. The bag had disappeared into the kneehole of her desk.

On his way to the hospital, he reached Ginny Tomlinson and asked her about the seizure call she’d taken.

“Little kid named Jimmy Wicker. The grandfather called it in. Bill Wicker?”

Rusty knew him. Bill delivered their mail.

“He was taking care of Jimmy while the boy’s mom went to gas up their car. They’re almost out of regular at the Gas and Grocery, by the way, and Johnny Carver’s had the nerve to jack the price of regular to eleven dollars a gallon.
Eleven!
”

Rusty bore this patiently, thinking he could have had his conversation with Ginny face-to-face. He was almost back to the hospital. When she was done complaining, he asked her if little Jimmy had said anything while he was seizing.